[Peetwo]

AOPA Oz - Independent Instructor campaign ramps up...

Via the Oz today:

Call for independent instructors
12:00amANNABEL HEPWORTH
A general aviation group is calling for a US-style model that would allow for ‘independent’ flight instructors.

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Group calls for independent instructors to deal with demand

General aviation aircraft owners and pilots will urge Infrastructure and Transport Minister Michael McCormack to consider a US-style model that would allow for “independent” flight instructors to help deal with the global demand for pilots.

The Australian can reveal the Aircraft Owners and ­Pilots Association, which plans on setting up a campaign office in Wagga Wagga in Mr McCormack’s Riverina electorate, will raise the issue personally with him.

AOPA chief executive Benjamin Morgan said Australia’s ­aviation industry needed Mr ­McCormack “to take immediate action” on the issue of independent flight instructors.

Mr Morgan said he was looking forward to discussing this “and other urgent matters” in a meeting slated for May 1. “Continuing with the current regulatory approach is signing a suicide note for our industry,” he said.

Under the proposal, Australia would adopt the US Federal Aviation Administration’s interpretation of International Civil Aviation Organisation rules for flight instructor licensing.

It would mean authorised flight instructors would be able to conduct flight training without having to work for an outfit that holds a flight school certificate from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, a plan aimed at businesses in regional areas. But the proposal could face a backlash from flight schools concerned about the impact of such a model.

Mr Morgan said that current regulations for flight training organisations, Part 141 and Part 142 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, impose “significant regulatory compliance costs” that could make business in regional areas economically unviable.

In the US, independent flight instructors were mostly in regional and rural areas.

The push comes amid a shortage of flight instructors in which airlines have been poaching flight instructors to work as pilots.

As well, some flight schools have struggled to meet requirements contained in part 61 of the Civil ­Aviation Safety Regulations, causing particular difficulty for some of the small schools.

In a discussion paper on independent instructors, AOPA says that in country Australia, “where aero clubs once flourished, flight training is almost non-existent”. The paper points to fees charged by CASA to process applications, as well as “significant compliance and related costs during the certificate life-cycle”.

AOPA had put the discussion paper to CASA late last year.

But CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said the concept of independent flying instructors was raised during development of the new licensing regulations “and was generally not supported by the flying training sector”.

“It is important that flying instructors work within a framework that delivers consistent training outcomes,” he said.

“The future safety of aviation depends on the quality of training pilots receive today.”

The spokesman said this framework was provided by Part 141 and Part 142 regulations. He said CASA provided a full draft operations manual for Part 141 schools “which is ideal for individuals running their own flying school”.

Also, he said, CASA believed that changed medical certificate requirements for instructors and examiners “will increase the pool of pilots available to contribute to flying training”.

The 2014 review into air safety regulation said there was “scope for ­allowing training to be conducted by independent instructors not employed within approved organisations” and that ”the best practices of major countries should be taken into consideration”. But the idea was not specifically included in the recommendations.

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Sandy comment - Peter Gibson said the concept of independent flying instructors was raised during development of the new licensing regulations “and was generally not supported by the flying training sector”.


“It is important that flying instructors work within a framework that delivers consistent training outcomes,” he said.

There’s a laugh, CASA providing protection for existing (myopic) flying schools on the basis that they wouldn’t like competition from independent instructors, perversely that in the main they would have to train those instructors in the first place. 

Second laugh that by inference the far less costly, more efficient, ICAO compliant and proven environment for flying training in the US is not up to scratch. Some 70% of US pilots are trained by independent instructors, and plenty of them are flying in our skies every single day. 

Uncoupled from Ministerial responsibility some 30 years ago, regulator the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, a Commonwealth corporation, revels in its own independence and has made a meal out of General Aviation. This fee gouging make work salary factory was tasked with rewriting the rules some 30 years ago. Its spent umpteen $millions and still not finished and never will. The latest tranche of rules is killing off many of the few remaining flying schools with the most unworkable, micro managing and pointless strictures contained in thousands of pages of strict liability rules which have been inappropriately migrated into the criminal code. 

Minister McCormack might just find that his constituents aren’t happy to find out the truth of the waste and mismanagement in aviation, which particularly impacts regional communities. The responsibility largely of successive National Party incumbents. Alex in the Rises. 

MTF...P2